BB celebrities banished to basement

Jockey Frankie Dettori and X Factor contestant Rylan Clark have entered the Celebrity Big Brother house - and immediately had to banish half their housemates to the basement.

Bosses on the Channel 5 show have decided to make life hard for some of the contestants, with half spending their time in the grotty basement area, where there is no running water, no windows and residents will have to scavenge for food from the scraps from the main house.

Told their task by Big Brother in the Diary Room, Dettori and Clark looked distinctly uncomfortable but said: "Somebody's got to do it."

As the other housemates were introduced in pairs by host Brian Dowling, Dettori and Clark had to decide who would go the luxury house, and who to the basement. They first sent model Paula Hamilton to the basement as being more irritating than actress Tricia Penrose, who was allowed to go to the house proper.

Next Dettori and Clark had to decide who was more "fake" out of Neighbours actor Ryan Maloney, who has played Toadfish in the Australian soap since 1995, and ex-EastEnders and Footballers Wives star Gillian Taylforth, and sent Maloney to the basement.

Clark has been installed as favourite to win the show by bookmaker William Hill, with Dettori next.

One absentee is comedian Jim Davidson who had been due to appear but was dropped after being arrested and questioned by detectives over allegations of sexual offences, which he denies.

The contestants will spend the next few days holed up in the custom-built property in full glare of TV cameras with a winner emerging later this month if they can prove popular enough with viewers and their own housemates. The series is expected to last three weeks, with the first eviction due on Wednesday.

Dettori enters the house just weeks after he was given a six-month ban from his sport after a positive drugs test.

Hamilton found fame after starring in a VW ad campaign, but went on to have a problem with drink and drugs. She dated music and TV mogul Simon Cowell when she was in her teens.